


Craving Familiarity

by FrznLights



Series: Inserting Space. by Stiles. [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Teen Wolf (TV), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Crossover, Gen, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, author attempts Russian, hah.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 16:52:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1557413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrznLights/pseuds/FrznLights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles meets the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bucky goes to therapy (supposedly).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un beta'd. The 'soldat' (Russian for 'soldier) refers to Bucky.

_‘One session. The rest we can forge.’_

The Soldat ducked his head as he held the door open for the exiting passerby, before striding into the waiting room.

 _‘Who knows? Maybe it’ll be useful.’_ Natasha had given him a wry grin, belying the optimistic nature of her own words.

Spotting the front desk, the Soldat strode forward, “James Pierson, four o’clock for Dr. Roberts?”

The kid manning the desk didn’t even look up from the screen. Typing furiously, the boy squinted and scrunched up his nose even as he raised a hand and made a flippant wave, “Yeah, down the hall. First door to your right. Have your papers ready.”

He waited for a half second, but when the receptionist remained silent, he stepped away. As he made his way down the hallway, he found his eyes drawn to the papers in his hand.

James Pierson.

_‘We can’t exactly set up an appointment for a ‘Mr. Winter Solider’.’_

_‘…’_

_‘…Or would you prefer your old name, Vanya?’_

_‘Old name…?’_

_‘James Bucha- _’__

_‘ **No**.’_

At the sound of wrinkling paper, he looked down to his hand. Grimacing, he switched the documents to his gloved hand, flexing his uncovered one.

He wasn’t sure what he was doing here.

No, he knew why he was here.

Romonav had said she understood, but that it wasn’t her call. Somehow though, he suspected that she’d agreed with the call, that he needed to plan for an _after_ –

– which was strange because he thought she’d know that there was no _after_ for him– not with his mission.

He was taking down Hydra, erasing their existence and everything they’d ever created.

 _Everything_.

(and maybe that was why Natasha had set this up; maybe she knew that ‘ _everything’_ included – )

“Mr. Pierson?”

He looked up to see a slightly overweight man lean out from the doorframe. He met blue eyes that peered at him over chrome colored wire rim glasses and studied how the smile dimmed under his stare.

After a moment of silence, Roberts managed another smile, “Uh, please, come in. Feel free to call me Jack.”

Without a word, he followed the doctor into the room and closed the door behind him. The doctor’s shoulders remained rigid under his eye the entire time.

As Roberts fussed with the papers on his desk and mumbled hasty apologies, the _Soldat_ glanced at the clock.

Fifty nine minutes to go.

*

They were talking about clouds of all inane things when the building shook.

There was an odd sense of relief even as he leapt up to his feet while Roberts dropped his pen.

“Oh my- , did you feel that?”

Having jumped toward the windows, the Soldat swept aside the curtains and stared at the parking lot below, “Yes.”

Roberts slid over to his desk on his swivel chair, and peered at the computer screen on his desk, “I wonder if it was an earthquake. Would you mind if I checked the –”

His phone hadn’t buzzed. Still, he dug out his phone as he answered, “Go ahead.”

No messages.

Roberts was already clicking around with a frown, “Hmm, no earthquake notices. Strange, normally there’s some sort of an announcement.”

The Soldat tensed. They’d waited a month after their last raid on HYDRA before scheduling this appointment. In terms of devastation, they hadn’t accomplished much; the warehouse had been mostly abandoned, but there was a camera that they hadn’t noticed until an hour after they had cleared the place.

Was this finally HYDRA’s attempt to recover him?

(Neither he nor Natasha counted the last five ambushes. Their attackers had been too poorly prepared for them to be an actual Winter Soldier retrieval squad.)

“Blast it,” Roberts leaned forward and pressed a button on his black conference phone, “Stiles? You there?”

There was no reply. Roberts huffed and swept a hand through his hair, loosening a few strands of blond hair from their gelled position, “I swear, that kid disappears at the –  Look, I’m sure it was just construction or something going on down the street. Do you wanna continue with – hey, where are you going?”

The _Soldat_ paused, hand on the doorknob and looked back. Just as he opened his mouth to reply, the phone rang.

Roberts looked at him and back at the phone with indecision just as it rang again. On the third ring, Roberts pointed at him, “Look, just hold your horses.”

Picking up the phone with an impatient breath, the doctor pressed another button, “Hello, look I’m in the middle of a session. Is this important?... Hello?”

With another frown, the doctor lowered the phone and stared at it for a moment.

Eyeing the ceiling tiles, the _Soldat_ pushed off from the wall that he’d been leaning against, “Is this room soundproofed?”

With a distracted air, the doctor pressed another button on the conference phone as he answered, “Yes, of course. Patient confidentiality and all that – especially for our work with the government and hello? Hello?”

The _Soldat_ looked back as the doctor stood up with an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry. Call it nerves, but would you mind if I stepped out –”

The door was kicked in with a crash and would have hit the _Soldat_ if he hadn’t already been moving. Sweeping an arm out, he elbowed the intruder right in the breast bone as he shoved the barrel of the gun up. He was pivoting, using his other elbow to hit the man’s temple and grabbing attacker’s collar to use the man as a potential shield against more intruders when he heard the shout, “ _Glaza Meduzy!”_

He slowed, as he felt ice trickle in from the back of his neck. Stubbornly, he shoved the man into the hall like a battering ram, taking down another intruder and snapped his leg out to the side.

“Glaza Meduzy! Glaza Meduzy!”

His breaths shortened and he was vaguely aware of his attackers backing away as he straightened. It was too cold. He gritted his teeth, running more on instinct now than any semblance of strategy.

“Glaza Meduzy!”

He couldn’t think. He felt his arms drop to his side; the chill having worked all the way down to his fingertips and was now climbing back up into his head with increasing intensity, seizing his ribcage and slowing down his breaths despite his hammering heartbeat.

This time, the words were spoken, “Glaza Meduzy.”

He couldn’t think. He wasn’t supposed to think.

“James! James! What did you do to him? James-agh.”

“Drag him into the hall. You, look at me.”

A punch. He stumbled to the side, head twisted to the side.

 _'Derzhite vashe polozheniye.'_   _Hold your position._

He straightened without a word and waited, absently hearing whispers under the muffled shouts of the doctor as the man was dragged out into the hallway.

“Soldat! Look at me.”

Soldat, he was the Soldat. He raised his eyes obediently. Brown hair, freckled nose, janitor’s uniform. Mid to late 30s. A scratch over his left temple.

“Looks like we got him. Is the doctor on the list?”

“No.”

“Then dispose of him. Quietly.”

“Are we sure this is the Winter Soldier? Doesn’t look like much.”

A huff. His left arm was yanked forward; his glove, tugged off.

“Satisfied?”

“Just saying.”

There was a click and a muffled voice.

“What was that? I thought you said the office was empty.”

The footsteps were getting louder.

“It was!”

There was a louder click and the janitor impostor waved his hand impatiently to the side before dropping away with a hissed, “Don’t move _Soldat_.”

He stared vacantly ahead.

*

“I couldn’t be anywhere safer; it’s therapy for Bournes and Bonds. Lyds-I _know_ Lyds. Lydia, got it, sorry, won’t happen again.” Stiles frowned at where the wheel was caught against the door frame.

He listened without registering Lydia's voice as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Something was wrong. He finished backing out into the hallway, pulling the cart with one hand while flexing his other wrist. Immediately, he felt a little more at ease as smooth, almost cold, powder flowed into his palm.

“Did you finish that translation? Allison needs it for the summit meeting next week. Stiles? Stiles, are you listening to me?”

With a shrug, he let out a yelp and made to fumble for the phone, causing the cart to slide into the closing door with a crash, “Gah, sorry Lyds, gotta go – boss coming!”

She was totally going to call him out on that act.

As he flailed, he loosened his fist, allowing the powder to slip through his fingers into the air, right before he landed on his ass. If this was just his paranoia acting up, he was going to look really stupid.

Then again, he was fairly certain that he’d long since established that his dignity could go fuck itself if it meant he could have a cup of his boss’s expensive coffee.

He cursed for show and stood. With an anticipatory grimace, he slowly turned around. For a brief moment, he felt the tension drop.

No zombies or crazy mythical ninjas in the hallway – always a good place to start. There was only a man, slightly taller than him with hair swept into a loose ponytail, standing by his boss’ door, staring absently at the opposite wall.

Then, he noticed the wood splinters and plastic chunks lying in the floor.

He saw shadows move in the open doorway as he flipped himself over the cart and muttered, “Cade in somnum.”

He felt the valerian in his powdered mix perk in interest.

There was a thud and then a moment of silence before, “Hey kid!”

Stiles rolled his eyes to himself and whispered again, “Cade in somnum.” The mountain ash sighed in his mind’s eye.

Oh good, so nothing supernatural, just humans.

“Receptionist!”

… Just humans.

Ugh. Why didn’t that make him feel any better?

“I ain’t asking again. We gotta finish repairs by the end o’ the day, so if you could move your damn cart outta the way.”

Repairs? Really? That was what they were going with? Rolling his eyes, Stiles let the rest of the powder in his hand pool into the ground and drew an infinity symbol in the pile with the third and final whisper, “Cade in somnum.”

Twisting around, he brought his feet back under him so that he was in a low crouch and called back, “Repairs?”

There was a muffled laugh, and dammit did all his enemies have to be so irritatingly condescending?

This time, the thud was louder and accompanied by clicks that sounded disturbingly familiar to the ones he used to hear in Allison’s armory, “Yeah kid, repairs.”

He let out a low laugh. Lydia was never going to let him hear the end of it if she ever learned about this, and Scott would just be –

He fought down the familiar pain of yearning. (He only had himself to blame, and on the plus side, as long as he kept this whole encounter off the news, his pack – were they still his pack? – would never know.

It’s not like they could meet in person, not until they broke the stupid curse.)

“Ain’t got all day.” This time, the impatience was sharper. The jackasses must have wanted to keep this quiet as well.

Stiles wondered what they wanted with Jack, because as far as he could tell, the man was basically like Santa – great with kids, but creepy to most paranoid adults (and yet somehow, the department had started to shuffle cases above level 5, A.K.A. the cases with paranoid adults, over to his boss with increasing frequency as of late).

Eh. Screw it. Feeling his lips twist into a sickeningly familiar smile that he knew he’d hate if he saw himself in the mirror, he peeked over the cart, catching the attention of the office intruder.

The man stood there in a pale blue uniform (which, janitor? – cliché much?) and a gun pointed straight at him, “Stand up.”

With a shrug, he raised both hands up and breathed out, “Effloresce.”

From the corner of the eye, he watched as the infinity sign he’d drawn in the pile by his foot vanish. White tendrils curled and stretched out such that the pile quickly disappeared. Misty wisps coalesced and condensed around the figures in the hallway; several more disappeared into Jack’s office.

The fake janitor staggered, then dropped. The sound of his body hitting the linoleum floor was echoed several times out of sight.

Stepping around the cart, Stiles frowned as he watched the first man he’d seen in the hallway take a single step back, list to the side, before straightening back with visible effort. As he approached, this pattern repeated itself several more times.

By the time he stood in front of the man with hair that would make Lydia cry, faint tremors were covering the guy’s frame. Wary, he glanced around, checking again to ensure that all potential threats were out and hey, would you look at that? He’d knocked out his boss too.

With a frown, he took a step back and focused. Holding a hand out in front of him, he commanded the valerian and mountain ash and willowbark in front of him to return.

Gradually at first, like a reluctant cat, trails of white slunk out from the man’s mouth and nose.

 _Now_.

The trails thickened and leapt into his palm with an almost abashed air.

Don’t ask him ok? He didn’t know how dust could act ‘abashed’ either.

The tremors had ceased almost as soon as he’d withdrawn the last of his concoction. When the man only resumed his straight-backed position, Stiles pocketed his mix and gingerly took a step forward.

No response.

“Hey man, you ok?”

Nervous, Stiles fidgeted and looked around again. Licking his lips, he took another cautious step forward and waved a hand in front of the man’s face.

Stiles sagged, dropping his shoulders down and drooping forward with a sigh, “Great.”

Pushing his lips up, he squinted his eyes at the dude before throwing his hands up and taking another step forward, eyes half-closed in preparation for a blow that never came.

Well, that was cool. He didn’t get hit.

Opening his eyes fully, he sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth before reaching both hands forward to tilt the man’s head down.

The man’s skin was cold. Before he could dismiss the strangeness of the guy’s behavior as shock, he met the man’s blank stare and yanked his hands back in surprise.

There was just something wrong about that look.  

He staggered back and noted how the man’s eyes tracked him in an almost docile manner.

Unable to help himself, he shuddered, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Rubbing at his face with one hand, he stood and simply stared back. Not supernatural?

 _Really_?

If he left, the man’d undoubtedly get blamed for the whole scene, as the dude was clearly not all there.

Hell, maybe the dude would get the help he needed.

He could almost see Scott’s frown.

He sighed and hung his head. Puppy dog eyes.

Disappointed puppy dog eyes. That’s what Scott’s other super power was – the power to guilt trip even in absentia.

He eyed the end of the hallway for another long moment.

“I’m not fooling anyone am I?” he muttered to himself. He dropped his head back and cursed at the ceiling tiles.

Being a receptionist at this place wasn’t glamorous, but it made accessing research material and details behind headlining news (and the backgrounds of investigative officers) much easier than work elsewhere. He’d been pretty lucky to clear the security checks the first time around and well… he _liked_ working here. Jack could be an ass, but the coffee was good, and it was fairly easy to get away with doing pack business during his working hours.  

Plus, there had to be a reason as to why the man had reacted so badly to his powder mix.

He frowned. Stupid guilt.

He supposed there was another thing he could try. With an aggravated groan and as last frustrated wave of hands over his head, he dropped down next to the fake janitor and started patting the man down.

A pile of guns shoved in a corner with the ammo thrown haphazardly behind the desk and five tied men locked into a closet later, Stiles was sticking his earphones into the guy’s ears with a wince, “This is so weird.”

Could earbuds be disinfected?

Taking a few steps back, he eyed his surroundings again before digging out his phone to play the recording of Lydia’s banshee scream.

The next thing he knew, a fist was coming straight at his head. Instinctively, he ducked and pulled hard on his phone to unplug the earphones so that the recording would automatically stop. He didn’t want to risk waking the men in the closet; judging by the weapons he’d found, he was fairly certain they were some sort of mercenaries (Allison’s dad would probably salivate over some of those knives), and he didn’t want to risk waking them when he was still in the building.

Perhaps he should have had a different set of priorities, such as paying more attention to the fight, because the next swing clipped him. The next thing he knew, he was being pinned against the wall with a forearm pressed against his throat.

Gee, this was familiar.

Just as he was about to shove his dust mixture down the bastard’s airway, ethics and Scott’s sad eyes be damned, he met the man’s eyes and froze.

“BUCKY!”

The wall next to them broke open in a spray of dust and plaster.

He dropped to the ground and coughed as he was released.

Those eyes.  For a moment, he thought he was dreaming again, staring straight into eyes that were his but weren’t, eyes of who he could have become (could still become) had the nogitsune succeeded.

Which didn’t make sense, because it was just _eyes_ – just a pupil, iris, sclera, …he couldn’t-what?

“Bucky?”

He looked up, and oh, right, someone had just crashed through the walls – he really needed to work on prioritizing what he focused on – had he forgotten to take his Adderall?

The dust was clearing and the man he’d been attempting to help was backing away into Jack’s office– with his earphones.

Right, priorities.

(Dammit, he liked those earphones).

Following Ponytail’s eyes, Stiles twisted around to see a blond man step out from the rubble with an outstretched hand, “Wait, Bucky –”

“Don’t call me that.”

The order was growled out, and holy shit was that who he thought it was?

“Bucky –”

“I’m not Bucky.”

Stiles spun around to study the dude he’d been trying to help, and whoa, how had he missed that hand...or _arm_? Ok, to be fair he’d been somewhat distracted, and the guy’s sleeves were pretty long, but –

Wait a second.

Metal arm. Captain America.

…

Hadn’t there been a big uproar about a metal armed assassin attacking the captain last year?

He scrambled back on all fours until his hands hit the wall.

That didn’t look like the face of someone looking at his would be killer. He looked almost like how Ethan looked when they thought Aiden had come back. 

The blond, _Captain America (because it had to be Captain America – who else plunged through walls built like a tank with a face like that?)_ , dropped his arm, “Are you hurt?”

Wait, _Bucky_? _Bucky Barnes_?Captain America’s sidekick?

He craned his head around just in time to meet the eyes of the man in question.

He swallowed; the eyes left.

“No.”

Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Those eyes.

Those eyes were the ones that reminded him of himself right after the nogitsune. But what kind of an assassin held that type of guilt and self-hatred? What kind of a person would try to kill their best friend?

 (‘ _The nogitsune **twisted** the blade with your hands, danced your fingers along the hilt…’)_

Mercenaries in the closet and blank eyes that were so jarringly familiar?

So of course, his mouth chose that moment to run away from him, “So it’s brainwashing? That blows.”

And just like that, he found himself being scrutinized by two legendary figures of history that everyone had once thought dead, but apparently weren’t.

Now that he thought about it, maybe his life wasn’t that abnormal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trigger phrase, "Glaza Meduzy", should be Russian for "Medusa's eyes". 
> 
> Come babble with me on [tumblr ](http://aternoctis.tumblr.com) ? Would love to know how this could be improved or if there are recs for fics that have Bucky and Stiles interacting.


	2. Nobody gets therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has issues and Clint loses rights to eat his bacon (unless he can steal them back). =.=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a reason I don't usually play in the Avengers sandbox; I have a hard time getting their voices. Stiles might be slightly OC cuz I accidentally found myself giving him a little bit more trauma in his background. 
> 
> Warning: Mentions of loss of agency. As always, please let me know if I've missed any trigger warnings.

Natasha frowned and found herself wishing for her former secretarial desk at Stark Industries. The tech she had access to would have made filtering through these camera videos so much faster.

“Did you tell him?” _Did you tell Steve where I was? Had this been a setup?_

Narrowing her eyes, she zoomed in on the reflection in the glass. Blowing up the image on a separate screen, she set her program to enhance the video quality before looking over her shoulder at Vanya, “No. He’s been tracking HYDRA too.”

She made sure he could feel the pointed nature of her gaze, even if his eyes were on the screen, instead of her. If she _had_ set him up, he wouldn’t be here.

If she had spoken to Steve and dropped Bucky’s name, she wouldn’t have herded a stubborn Clint in clear need of medical attention down into the corridor to distract Steve as she escorted Vanya out towards (and then away from) the medics.

She also knew that Clint hadn’t missed the fact that he’d been played the moment he took in the scene and understood the situation. The phone on the side of her hip buzzed again, causing her to finally look away from her former mentor, not that he seemed to have remembered that.

18:25:32 EST BRANDT: TRAITOR.

18:25:33 EST BRANDT: HOW COULD YOU.

18:26:35 EST BRANDT: HIS EYEEEESSS.

She smiled. Barton was such a drama queen. It was his own damn fault. She wouldn’t have been able to make that play if he hadn’t attempted to hide his injuries.

18:26:35 EST BRANDT: ARE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN YOURS!!!1111

She narrowed her eyes and wondered briefly if Clint was unashamedly texting his words before the Captain.

Letting the phone drop back into place, she returned her attention to the screen, and pulled up a second window next to the first.

 “There, pause it.”

 

 

 

 

She spotted it the same time he did, and by the time he’d moved his finger away from the screen, the video was rewound to the point when Vanya’s fourth attacker had reappeared, pointing a gun at someone offscreen. A few taps of the keys later and she had a third window stitching the partial reflections from the two videos into one.

They’d been lucky that the cameras that the attackers hadn’t disabled had been angled to catch these reflections. The images flashed on screen, like an extremely slow stop-motion animation.

She stared as the HYDRA agent dropped to the ground without having been touched. Twenty frames later, an image of the same boy that they were now holding in a conference room down the hall stepped into view. She studied his cautious stance, before she spoke, “He was hired less than a year ago, graduated with high honors from the local community college.”

 _We have nothing that stands out on him_.

Slowly, frame by slow frame, the boy reached forward.

Vanya leaned in closer, eyes riveted to the screen even as he inquired, “Did you find the trigger?”

Her next blink was only slightly slower than before – the only sign of dismay she allowed herself. A part of her had hoped that the past few months she’d spent with him was helping him move forward, away from the grips of his conditioning and closer to defining the person that he was now.

The reminder that he could be so disabled by mere words couldn’t have helped.

She watched as the boy stuck his hand out in front of Vanya’s slackened expression, “How much do you remember?”

“I disarmed the first man, and then I was attacking him,” he replied with a nod toward the screen.

She darted her eyes to the side for a moment before looking away, “I have it, but not what snapped you out.” Unzipping her jacket, she fished out the phone she’d found when she’d first arrived on scene and held it up, “I’ve cast out some lines.” _I’ll let you know if any of my contacts bite._   

She knew that he knew that she was watching for his reaction in the table’s glass surface.

Her eyes never left his reflection as she kept her hand raised in the air.

The bottom half of the phone was crushed; it was that same damaged end that she deliberately held toward him. He stared at the damage for a moment, before returning his gaze to the screen and answered her unvoiced question with the same bland expression he’d worn since she’d found him, “A scream.”

A scream was what woke him – what _he thought_ woke him.  

She pressed her lips together, about to inquire further when he tilted his head to the side. A split second later, she understood his concern as familiar voices drew near.

A blink and he was across the room, opening the back door as the main door burst open. Steve and Clint spilled in, with Clint complaining at the top of his lungs, “See? He’s not here. Natasha wouldn’t hide him without–”

Clint paused as he realized that Steve had caught sight of the slowly closing back door.  Predictably, the captain ran off, leaping over the chairs and slamming the back door open as he darted off.

“… reason,” Clint finished in a lower voice and stared at the back entrance for a moment before shaking his head, only to take a step back as he met her unimpressed gaze.

“What do you know?” she demanded. Because of all the therapists in the psych department that she had pushed Vanya into pretending to see for the sake of falsifying records, she had chosen the one that Clint had last seen, because he had said, with a careless shrug, ‘it could be interesting’.

She’d thought he had equated ‘interesting’ to ‘entertaining’, because, for the two of them, talking to therapists had always been more like playing a game, seeing how far they could wind up the stranger assuming to have the ability to ‘fix’ them before a transfer was requested.

She watched as his gaze flickered over her shoulder, taking in all the possible contextual clues that could help him answer her question, and saw the moment he understood by the sudden smirk that appeared.

Standing up, she picked up her files, and found herself watching the same boy from earlier as he attempted to block Vanya’s punch. Somewhat impatient, she leveled the archer with another stare, “Is he the reason why you recommended Dr. Roberts?”

Clint grinned and shrugged.

She resolved to steal the bacon in his freezer.

*

Stiles was picking at the exposed wires at the center of the long conference table when the door opened. You’d think he’d be smoother at pasting on an innocent face after all these years, but in his defense, he hadn’t been expecting Captain America.

So when the door opened, and he looked up to see a superhero staring straight at him, Stiles tried to scramble off the table (which he was on because conference tables were HUGE and how else was he supposed to get a good look at the wires?), except his sleeve was a little longer than expected and the table was a little glossier than he thought and he ended up slipping and tumbling straight off the edge and crashing into the deceptively comfortable swivel chairs.

They weren’t so comfortable when you crash into them.

“Ow.”

Maybe his usual lack of grace was good for one thing, because he recovered quickly, faster than the captain had expected judging by the look on the guy’s face, and scrambled up,  “Ow, hi- whoa, whaa. Hah.”

Yes, he was the master of five languages – English, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Gibberish.

He’d been aiming to learn Japanese, but Kira said it sounded more like gibberish.

Whatever. That was what Google Translate (and Kira’s Mom) was for.

(Not that he really wanted to ask her anything, ever, because –

Well, just because). _Bad memories were bad._

His knees buckled again and he found himself sitting on the ground, because there wasn’t a chair – and this time, his clumsiness _was_ an act, because he knew that face of eager earnestness. He recognized the tense frame, the tightly barely restrained energy running through the Cap’s shoulders, the impatient need to do something before his best wasn’t good enough, to fix things and make everything okay (when they really couldn’t be okay).

And well, so sue him, he didn’t want to deal with it, because he’d chased and been chased and was far too familiar with the story of the bad guy that wasn’t and the drama of two friends separated by circumstance, and he didn’t know how to talk about what had happened today (because why else was the Captain here?) without talking about himself, at least not to a guy so much like Scott and not until he had more time to spin a story that wouldn’t land him in an asylum (again).  

So he pasted an expression of hero worship, which wasn’t that hard to fake, and gaped up at the Captain as the man looked down at him with a desperate, but determined expression.

“How did you know what to do?”

“Uh wha-?”

The Captain closed the door behind him – which wasn’t exactly good because, well, there were no witnesses around now (unless there were cameras hidden around that he had somehow missed) and he knew how desperate best friends could become, but at the same time there were no witnesses to him being a lying liar who lied to _Captain America_.

He watched as Captain America visibly focused on his mission to look at him with a stern and expectant expression, “Look, the man who you were trying to help –”

 _The man who tried to strangle me?_ To be fair, he wasn’t exactly the first, but it was the principle of the matter.

“ – he’s… like a brother to me, so if you could explain how you know about the brainwashing, or anything else, I’d really appreciate it.”

And dammit that was way too much sincerity to handle and he was going to go to hell for this, but that wasn’t exactly a new thought and he’d never claimed to be a paragon of virtue anyway.

He swallowed audibly and gaped some more and made his eyes extra wide, “You’re Ca-captain… it’s an honor, I mean, I just wow … like I – ”

The man’s brows twisted up, anguish and frustration stamped right on the guy’s forehead in bright glaring red letters for the briefest of moments, before dropping down as the Captain let out a soft huff. When the man looked back up at him, it was with a small tight smile, just a little too subdued to be perfect for the presses.

Stiles resisted the urge to shrivel up and die, and smiled instead as he scrambled up, “Can-I ah you wow, sign, I mean- you’re awesome and, pen, pen, penpenpenpen.”

From the corner of his eye as he pretended to pat himself down, he saw the Captain’s smile dim. He could almost see the moment the poor guy made the decision to let someone else handle him.

It reminded him a little of his dad, actually.

As if he couldn’t feel any worse.

“Thanks, I uh, I’ll see what I can do about getting someone to get your statement soon.” The Captain nodded at him before turning away.

The moment the door closed, Stiles sank into a seat.

Whelp, at least he could tell his dad that lying to a sheriff was good practice for lying to a national hero. A small part of him was slightly surprised that he’d gotten away with it, but he suspected that the chaos of the general situation was more likely to blame.

Or maybe he had just gotten better at lying.

And that was when a new voice spoke, “I can’t believe you lied to Captain America.”

Stiles jumped, twisting around in the same motion, to see a certain familiar jerkface crouched at the end of the table, eating a banana of all things. Seeing the dust bunnies on the man’s hair and around the man’s form on the otherwise pristine table, Stiles automatically looked up to see a missing ceiling tile.

He choked and pointed at the man, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

He was flashed a grin.

Unsettled (because, seriously, who came out of the ceiling?), Stiles turned the chair he was sitting around and crossed both arms over the back of the chair, “Are you still going by William?”

The dude swallowed the last of the banana and chucked the peel over his shoulder.

It went in the trash – didn’t even nick the rim.

“It’s Clint today.”

“Pick that out of a baby book?”

“Why? Are you thinking of having one?”

Stiles made a face at the thought. He had enough trouble keeping himself sane and alive without adding another one to the mix.

Clint laughed, “So what was up with that act?”

Stiles gaped, before blustering, “What, that wasn’t- I don’t, what are you talking about?”

The dude arched a way-too-judgy eyebrow, “Uh-huh. Just a warning, the Cap hasn’t seen the footage yet, so I wouldn’t try that twice.”

Stiles almost froze, but too many years of bluffing past Peter had taught him better. He was fairly certain that there weren’t any cameras pointed at the corridor, which was why he tended to take pack calls in that hallway.

What had they seen?

 _Clint_ (or whatever the hell the guy was named) finally stood and jumped off the desk, and wow that sweatshirt had hid some really defined arms. Dressed in a black vest and black _everything_ really, Clint kinda looked familiar – like TV familiar.

Stiles didn’t really like where his head was taking him. Bantering with the guy had been a lot more fun when the guy wasn’t a suspected superhero.

“Cap’s just looking for some answers.”

Stiles removed his arms from the back of the chair and shifted his weight uneasily, “Don’t know what to say… Guess we can’t all get what we want?”

He tensed as Clint approached, but the man merely walked past him to round the other end of the conference table, “Alright.”

Suspicious, Stiles squinted, “Alright?”

Clint grinned and waggled a familiar phone next to his face, “Guess you don’t want your phone.”

Stiles squawked and lunged, “WHAT?! Why do you – give me back my phone!”

Clint dodged and nimbly leapt over the table with one hand, sliding across the table with enviable ease so that the conference table was between them.

Lydia was going to kill him.

Clint laughed, “What’d you play?”

Stiles eyed the way the chairs were positioned on the other side of the table. Could he slide under the table fast enough? He shot the aggravation of the day another look, “What?”

“The vid cams have you playing something to wake up Mr. Pierson.”

Mr. Pierson? Really? They were still going with that?

He arched an eyebrow only to get one in return. Yeah, he knew there was a reason why he’d grudgingly liked this guy the first time around. He stuck his hand out impatiently, “Gimme my phone and I can play it for you.

The second eyebrow joined the first, wrinkling the man’s forehead, “You could just tell me what you played.”

“A friend’s voice.”

Clint blinked, evidently surprised at his ready answer, “… you aren’t lying.”

He clenched his jaw. See? Maybe there was a reason why he lied all the time, because nobody believed him when he was telling the truth, “No. Now give me my phone.”

Clint shook his head thoughtfully and tossed the phone with an underhand throw.

Snatching it out of the air, Stiles stared at it in horror, “What’d you do to my phone?!” He was taking it apart even as he moved toward the table.

No doubt somebody had taken it apart once already judging by the bent angle of some of the snap fit joints, but he still had to see the damage for himself.   

“’Was like that when we retrieved it.”

Stiles stared at the mangled remains of his phone.

“What made you think your friend’s voice would help?”

He stood up and started gathering the pieces into a small pile. At least most of it was backed up online, “It worked before – how much longer do I need to stay in here?”

“Before?” The voice was closer this time, and like before, Stiles startled with a jump, and nearly dropped the pieces of the phone.

Clint was holding the trashcan out with an amused quirk to his lips. The man’s gaze was steady and the corners of his eyes, unwrinkled.

No doubt, the dude was piecing together his words from their first encounter together.

He dropped the pieces of his phone into the can, over the banana peel, and looked back up to firmly confirm, “Before.”

Clint studied him for another long second before sauntering away to place the trashback back next to the door, “… The man you helped….”

Stiles blinked. “The guy who gave me this bruise?” he asked with a thumb pointed at his neck.

Clint turned around at his question, eyes catching on the bruise that he knew had bloomed spectacularly down to his collarbone, and sighed, “Mr. Pierson…”

Impatient, Stiles interrupted, “You mean Barnes.”

Clint just looked back at him steadily, which Stiles supposed was the best confirmation he was going to get for awhile (which – _holy shit_ ). Now that his suspicion had been confirmed, he wasn’t entirely sure where to go.

“Do you think your recording could help again?”

Help? He swallowed. For a moment, he was back in the hallway, pinned against the wall about as much by the arm against his neck as the eyes that stared furiously into his own. That was him _helping_?

Uncomfortable, he tried to reply flippantly, “Look, I don’t kn –”

He stopped under the patient stare and shifted his weight to his other leg, before pressing his lips together in defeat and looking out the window, “It might knock him out just as easily.”

“So a ‘maybe’.”

Stiles shot him an annoyed glance, before switching the subject abruptly, suddenly desperate to unsettle the man and his patient staring, “How are your nightmares?”

Unphased, Clint replied, “Great, terrific. Yours?”

Dammit. “Never better.”

Stiles turned back to the windows, silent. After a moment, he walked over and tangled his fingers in the strings of the window blinds, “Bu-Mr. Pierson wants to talk with me, doesn’t he?”

“These days, _you’re_ the guy to talk to,” answered Clint with annoyingly agreeableness.

 _Tell that to my pack._ He tilted his head to the side and sarcastically asked, “Have _you_ talked to me? Oh wait, you have. Did it help?”   

Now that he thought about it, maybe his boss wasn’t joking when he credited getting assigned higher ranked patients to Stiles.

“I’m back, aren’t I?”

Flustered and feeling about ready to vibrate out of his skin to get out of the place, Stiles turned back to the window and tugged on the string, lifting the blinds, “ _Was_ he brainwashed?”

The soft clicking of the clock’s second-hand echoed from the back of the room, and for a moment, Stiles thought that he wasn’t going to get an answer.

“Weren’t we all?”

This time, he wasn’t able to keep himself from freezing, but instead of being pressed for more information, he heard a soft thump and turned to see Clint disappearing into the ceiling.

*

Natasha left without a whisper. A minute later, the Soldat heard the door slide open. He knew the moment he was spotted by the muffled curse and the squeak of sneakers against the floor, followed by another thud. No doubt the boy had discovered that the door was now locked.

He wondered how Natasha had set it up. Had the boy thought he was escaping?

He remained motionless, one leg pulled against his chest and the other hanging over the edge of the staircase where the glass wall had yet to be installed.

Finally, a sigh broke the silence. It was followed by a soft set of footsteps and a much loud protesting squeals as a pair of the cafeteria’s metal chairs were dragged along the floor.

He waited for the boy to break the silence.

“Barnes was my favorite.”

He blinked.

“I mean Batman’s the best, but for actual historical heroes, he was my favorite.”

He’d read the file on the kid. The punk had probably just gotten lucky with the earphones trick, maybe the trigger was only set to work for a specific length of time. The child probably didn’t know anything; he didn’t know what Romonav was thinking. They still had to track down whoever actually took down his attackers and how they did it. He got to his feet, eyes intent on the exit on the lower floor.

“He’ll follow you, you know?”

He paused, one foot halfway into the air, over the stone ledge.

“He followed you into war.”

He stepped back and scoffed, unable to resist, “Check your facts, kid. _Barnes_ followed the Cap.” With that, he leapt and dropped to the floor in a crouch.

“ThreeTwoFiveFiveSeven.”

The words were blurred together, stated in a hurry.

He froze, both hands on the floor, weight on the balls of his feet.

The chair scraped again, and this time the voice was slightly raised, as if the speaker thought that a higher volume was needed just because he’d dropped down a floor, “Only New Yorker draftees got numbers starting with thirty-two; I started writing a whole report on the economics of the draft before I got distracted by the history of male cir –”

There was a sudden cough, the sound of a throat being cleared, before the same voice began a little less hurried than before, “Anyway, the Sergeant was drafted and we all know Captain America volunteered, but the funny thing is, I could never find any primary accounts of the captain in real combat before his infamous rescue of the 107th, before he rescued Barnes.”

He stood; he’d had enough.

“And after Barnes fell?”

He picked up speed, weaving his way through the tables as the voice grew louder.

“The Captain fell too – crashed straight into the ice.”

He kept moving.

“But that was then, is that what you’re thinking? That was then, but now his friends will stop him?”

He felt a spark of ire and he spun around on his heel to glare up. The boy was standing almost directly where he had been sitting, hands hanging loose at his side, staring straight at him.

He took a breath, then another.

“He had friends then too, and that didn’t stop him.”

He found himself taking a step forward, letting dark humor, the only kind of humor he really ever had bubble forth, “Are you trying to give a history lesson?” What did this kid think he knew? 

“He has friends now, and how much of a difference did it make?”

Anger swamped up, this time tinged with fear, which he viciously wiped out with long practice. Did the kid think he was saying anything that he hadn’t thought of before? He licked his lips, abruptly furious at Natasha and her apparent determination to switch the focus of his mission (he should have known that she wasn’t there for just him, but Steve and his stupid hope as well), “You don’t-“

“He will follow you, because that’s who he is.”

He opened his mouth, ready to raise his voice for perhaps the second time since he’d been free from HYDRA’s grasp only to be beaten by the child with feverish eyes, who was descending the steps as he spoke.

“If you run, and try to run yourself into the ground, tearing yourself apart until their hands aren’t in your eyes and their mouths against your ears and their voices puppeteering your _fucking_ heartbeat, you won’t be doing it to just yourself.”

This time, he was hot and cold with anger and recognition, because the boy was talking like he _knew_ , knew what it was like to be torn down and rebuilt. He crumpled the edge of the metal table by his hand and felt a brief moment of satisfaction at the boy’s badly hidden flinch at the sound, “Because you speak from experience? You and your 21 years and your teenage angst?”

The boy was silent for a moment, still on the final landing just a few steps from the same level as Vanya. Then the kid smiled, a twisted jagged thing, and spoke in a low voice, “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to hear the captain.”

Vanya frowned.

Any sense of apprehension that the boy had was suddenly gone. The only other person that Vanya had seen don another persona as suddenly as the kid was Nataliya.

The boy, Stilinski, took another step, “Didn’t you hear?” His voice was quiet, as if he was reading a book to a sleeping child. The kid tilted his head to the right, eyes mockingly wide and innocent as he took another step, “How many times did he cry your name after he broke through the wall? How many times does he still shout ‘Bucky’ – ”

Another step was taken and the child tilted his head forward, taunted with a raised eyebrow, and carefully enunciated, “Bu-cky?”

“ _I’m not **BUCKY** ,” _he spat out.  

And there was no doubt the boy had succeeded in enraging him, but the situation was too strange for him to lose his composure. So when the doors whispered open again, he spun around to the side to see none other than Steve walk in with a bowed head.

He took another step back so that he could see both men at the same time and saw the moment that Steve looked up.

But instead of bouncing Steve’s attention over to him, as he’d expected, the child recoiled at something from his side and turned a pasty white, which was strange, because there was only metal paneling next to the boy. The only thing that Stilinski could have reacted to was his own reflection. Regardless, he watched as the boy’s posture shifted, back to an awkward slouch and fidgety legs, and then the boy looked straight at him, a movement echoed by Steve.

Almost predictably, Steve let out a soft startled cry, “Bucky!”

The kid gave him an indecipherable look, “But you are, and that’s the problem.”

Steve stood, indecisive for a moment, before turning to face Bucky, which was the brief distraction that the boy took to leave the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what happened. The angst just kinda jumped in after I thought about the similarities between Stiles and Barnes. Anyway, thoughts on the voices? Stuff I should fix/be aware of? 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Come babble with me on [ tumblr ](http://aternoctis.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Quick thanks to those who commented in the last chapter, I wouldn't have written this chapter w/o your comments. Also, the stuff about drafting numbers was inspired by legete's tumblr post and supported by a quick glance at Wikipedia.


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